Lot 17: MARIA MIKHAILOVNA SINIAKOVA (1898-1989) Portrait of the artist’s sister K

MARIA MIKHAILOVNA SINIAKOVA (1898-1989) Portrait of the artist’s sister Ksenia Aseeva (Siniakova), 1960’s signed in Cyrillic (upper left) oil on canvas 60 x 49cm (23 5/8 x 19 5/16in).

Provenanace Private collection, Greece There is an inscription on the tacking edge of the canvas which reads: Ксеня Синякова Асеева 1960 Maria Siniakova played a critical role in many avant-garde activities, being ‘the main catalyst for introducing Futurism to Kharkov’ (M. Mudrak, The new generation and artistic modernism in the Ukraine, p. 67). Her family’s estate Krasnaia Poliana near Kharkov was a summer meeting place for many artists and poets involved with Futurism in Russia including, among many others, the Burliuk brothers, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Velimir Khlebnikov, Bogdan Gordeev, Boris Pasternak and Nikolai Aseev. (V. Markov, Russian Futurism: a history, p. 245). In the 1950s, after being expelled from the Artists’ Union of the USSR with the accusation of formalism, she started painting in the realist style. The offered lot is a portrait of the artist’s sister Ksenia, wife of the poet Nikolai Aseev and later of Anatolii Zverev. Also included in this important collection of works from a private Greek collection are two portraits of Ksenia Aseeva by Anatolii Zverev (lots 18 and 19). «Синяковых пять сестер, каждая из них по-своему красива. Жили они раньше в Харькове, отец у них был черносотенец, а мать человек передовой и безбожница. Дочери бродили по лесу в хитонах, с распущенными волосами и своей независимостью и эксцентричностью смущали всю округу, принимали участие в шествиях «Долой стыд». В их доме родился футуризм. Во всех них поочередно был влюблен Хлебников, в Надю — Пастернак, в Марию — Бурлюк, на Оксане женился Асеев».(Лилия Брик) Gromova Natalia, Uzel. Poety. Druzhby. Razhryvy. Iz literaturnogo byta 20 -30h godov, 2016 18